This week was busy with house work. We finished up Bev’s room. I did the painting and picture hanging, and Andy installed a sturdier clothing rod in her closet. Andy finished patching up the drywall (we need to get matching paint now). I also spent the first half of the week sick, which slowed me down.
While talking to my dear friend, Holly, we were talking about our tendency to people please and how from an outside perspective it could look like selflessness, but in actuality, depending on our motivation and attitude while doing it, it could be an act of pride. It stirred a quote to my mind where pride is more than thinking you’re better than others, but it is also thinking others are better than you. I couldn’t remember where I heard that quote, so I asked chatgpt “where is this said?” and it popped up with the talk by Ezra Taft Benson, “Beware of Pride.”
“The central feature of pride is enmity–enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen.”
He talks about when we eliminate competition, we avoid pride. “It is the comparison that makes you proud.” Anyway, this talk was humbling in all the right ways and even though it was written when I was four years old, I think it is a talk that is maybe even more important today with what is going on in our society. He said, “Pride can be trying to get the Lord to bend to your opinions rather than the other way around.” I see that a lot today on both sides of politics and with various social issues.
So how does this relate to people pleasing? It is because sometimes I worry more about whether someone will like me rather than that is what the Lord wants me to be doing with my time. “Fear of men’s judgment manifests itself in competition for men’s approval. The proud love “the praise of men more than the praise of God.”
I think the paragraph that helped me the most, or showed me an area of pride I should work on is this:
“The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough. Pride is ugly. It says, “If you succeed, I am a failure.”
While I encourage you to go and read/listen to the talk yourself, I’ll close with the antidote to pride: “We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are. [receiving council, forgiving others, serving others, sharing the gospel, and forsaking our sins].